


Not So Alone

by literati42



Category: The Good Cop (TV)
Genre: Burl is annoyed, Christmas, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Ryan gets a backstory, TJ needs a hug, TheGoodCopWinterFicChallenge, friendship bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 23:07:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16861780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: It began just before Christmas, the friendship that started between TJ Caruso and the young CSI, Ryan. Maybe their friendship never would have happened without Christmas magic (or faulty wiring)For the Good Cop Winter Fic Challenge 2018. Prompt: Stuck in an Elevator Together





	Not So Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! Here is my first story for the Good Cop Winter Fic Challenge, inspired by the amazing works of Hallmark Christmas movies. If you don't already know what I'm talking about, check out our tumblr: thegoodchallenge.tumblr.com for the details!
> 
> As always, so much love to the Good Conspirators! Especially AngelsAvengeMe who started this challenge with me! Please check it out and join us.
> 
> This is for the prompt: Stuck in an Elevator Together.

It started the day after Thanksgiving. TJ sat at his desk, eating his lunch while working like he did every day. Some of the other cops were in the habit of gathering together either to eat collectively in the bullpen or to go get food out during their brief breaks. TJ steered clear of these gatherings. He learned the hard way not to try and engage the other officers. It was not that he was ever explicitly told not to join them, but TJ went to public school growing up. He knew the ‘don’t sit with us vibe’ when he saw it. When they first became partners, Burl often went with the rest of the cops, but that lasted only a few weeks. Then he began eating at his desk by himself, but near TJ. The younger cop had no idea why this happened, but each time at lunch Burl would walk in and nod to him. They rarely exchanged more than a few words, but the nod happened each day.  
Then one day, specifically the day after Thanksgiving, TJ remembered, the new young tech came in and knocked on the case board like it was a door. “Hey, Detective,” he said. He was wearing an ugly Christmas sweater even though there were still a few days before December. It was a bit too baggy on his thin frame and was covered in what appeared to be actual Christmas lights that lit up. For some reason, he paired this with a bright orange bowtie that did not match at all. “Is anyone sitting there?” He motioned to the chair across the desk from TJ. The detective shook his head and watched as the tech came and sat down. He pulled out a brown paper bag and drew out of it a homemade wrap. The plastic covering it crinkled loudly as he worked it loose. “I made a Thanksgiving wrap. It’s turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and gravy. All the leftovers but in a wrap, so it’s like you take Thanksgiving dinner with you.” He said all of this slowly, in an even tone. “Would you like a bite?”  
“Uh,” TJ said, “No. Did you need something, Mr…”  
“Ryan. Just Ryan. I don’t really believe in last names, so you can just call me Ryan. I’m the new CSI tech. I mean, I’ve been working here for a month, but everyone keeps introducing me as the new tech, so I guess I’m still new.”  
“Ah…right. Did you need something, Ryan?”  
“No thank you, I brought everything I need.” He pulled a napkin out of his messenger bag along with a bottle of water. TJ watched him take a few more bites. He glanced over to find Burl also watching them. The older detective gave an apathetic shrug and went back to eating. TJ frowned but said nothing. Ryan finished his lunch in record time and stood. “Okay, bye Detective.” He walked out without another word. It was a strange moment, to be certain, but work resumed, and TJ put it out of his mind.   
Until the next day, when Ryan came back in with another ugly sweater—this one with a giant reindeer on the front—and a bag lunch. This time he brought two bottles of water. He offered one to TJ as he sat down. “You really should hydrate. My friend is a health and fitness tech, and he says you need to keep hydrated throughout the day if you want to be sharp.”   
“Um…thank you,” TJ said.   
That was how it began, as November gave way to the cold, wintery days of December. Ryan never explained why he started coming in to eat lunch at TJ’s desk, and TJ never figured out how to ask. Instead, it became an unspoken rhythm: TJ sat down for lunch, Burl came in and nodded, Ryan joined them and chattered a little and then left without explaining his presence.   
Then, on Christmas eve, one Detective Anthony Caruso, Jr. found himself working late. Burl had left at 6:00 on the dot, as he did every day. The bullpen was buzzing with activity, something about the holidays really brought out the worst in the criminals. He rubbed at his eyes and glanced out the window. The street lights softly illuminated the swirls of snow just beginning to spin around on the street outside.   
“Caruso,” Captain Delghetty’s voice brought him back to the moment. She was out of uniform, in dress slacks and a black sweater. “Are you still here? I thought I told you to go home hours ago.”  
“Yes, I was just finishing some paperwork.” He looked at her.   
“Finish it after Christmas,” she replied. “Go home, Caruso.” She hesitated, and he saw her evaluating him. “You know, I would invite you to join us…my wife loves you, but we’re going to Teresa’s parents and…”  
“No, it,” TJ waved this off. “I’m just planning on a quiet night in. Say hello to Teresa for me.”   
“Look, I’m not great with the emotions talk, but I know this must be…a hard holiday what with…well.”  
TJ flinched slightly, “You’re right, Captain. I should head home.”  
“Right. Well…I will see you after the holiday, Detective.”  
He nodded to her, gathering his stuff. He would just have to bring work home with him. TJ headed for the elevator.   
“Hold the door, please, Detective,” Ryan said, hustling over to make it in just as the doors slid shut, leaving the two of them alone in the elevator.   
“Were you working this late?” TJ asked.  
“No, I’m in a Christmas robotics contest, and I was just using the lab computer to finish up a few details.”  
TJ lifted a finger, “That’s an infraction.”  
“Is it? Oh,” Ryan said. Suddenly, the elevator gave a violent jerk. The lights flickered on and off. TJ braced against the wall as the lights went completely out. “Um…Detective?”  
TJ pulled out his cell phone, switching the flashlight mode on. The small box was filled with a blue glow. There was no reception in the elevator, of course. He saw Ryan’s face with the same open-mouthed blankness as usual, but there was something off in his eyes. “Ryan?”  
“I spent a lot of time in lockers in high school, and I’m not um, entirely good with closed in spaces.”   
“We’re in a building full of cops. They’ll have us out any minute. Maybe…sit down?”  
“Yeah, that sounds good.”  
TJ lowered himself down and watched Ryan shakily follow suit. TJ knew enough about emergency situations to recognize when Ryan’s breath began to quicken. “Hey…tell me about the robotics. You do…competitions on Christmas?”  
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “I go by my family’s estate in the afternoon, but you know, it’s a lot. So, I met up with friends afterward. This year Rudolf the Red Nose Robot really has a shot.”   
TJ nodded, taking in all those words separately and trying to put them into a coherent picture of the young tech sitting beside him.   
“What are you doing for Christmas, Detective?” Ryan asked.   
“Just a quiet Christmas this year,” TJ said.  
“Oh, you don’t celebrate Christmas?”  
“Not this year.”  
Ryan turned to him in the glow. “On the count of your Dad?” he said it in the same deadpan he used for everything else, but TJ still flinched slightly.   
“Yeah, partially.” TJ tilted his head, “Growing up, Christmas was everything. I mean, we did all the baking Christmas cookies, going to the big Italian Christmas Eve mass in suits and ties. We watched all the Christmas movies. And the Christmas day feast was…my mother always made everything special. It was her favorite time of year. Dad was generous with gifts. I mean, as a kid I had everything. The perfect Christmas.” TJ did not know how many times he said those words. Any time anyone asked about what growing up with the infamous Tony the Tiger Caruso, Sr was like he said the same thing. “I had everything I wanted.” He said it and people accepted it.   
Everybody accepted it, but Ryan was not like everybody else. “But,” he said, “That’s just presents. Didn’t you have other family around?”  
TJ felt thrown, “No, never. Our extended family didn’t even send cards. I mean, I didn’t notice, I didn’t realize it was weird. My mother made holidays so special, it didn’t seem like a loss for years.” TJ leaned his head back against the elevator wall. “My mother’s family disowned her when she married my father, and…I don’t know anything about his family other than they grew up poor and he swore we’d never live like that.”   
“So now your father’s in prison, and your mom is…” Ryan said. TJ nodded slowly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ryan watching him. “So you’re alone?”  
The detective looked away from him. “I’m fine.”  
“You know,” he said, his tone still the same, flat and low. “It would be okay if you weren’t fine.” Ryan was silent for only a second before he continued. “I’m not always fine.”  
TJ tilted his face up. It felt like a crack running through him. Every ounce of held back pain began pounding on his chest.  
“Are you crying?” Ryan asked, “I read that men in this culture have trouble crying but, crying is very healthy as long as you hydrate afterward, but it tends to get repressed on account of toxic masculinity.”  
“I’m not crying,” TJ said. The young tech opened his mouth to say something else, but TJ filled the air between them. “Ryan,” he said, “Why did you start eating at my desk?”  
“Because the other officers aren’t very nice to you,” he said. “They aren’t very nice to me either. They think I’m weird.” He looked around. “Do you think we’re going to be stuck in here all night?”  
“No,” TJ said. He needed to process this, to think over all of it, but right now he needed to distract the tech. “Did you say your ‘family’s estate’ earlier?”  
“Yeah,” he said, “My parents are the Wentworths.”  
“The…Manhattan Wentworths?”   
“Yeah. Don’t tell anyone though, please Detective? I don’t want to the other officers being nice to me because of who my family is. How would I be able to find the ones who are genuine?”  
“Of course,” TJ quirked a slight smile. “Why did you tell me?”  
“Because you're always genuine,” he said like it was obvious. The elevator gave a jerk and then the lights came back on. They felt it slowly begin to move. Ryan looked up as if he could watch the movement. Then in exactly the same earnest tone as his last proclamation, he said, “Do you think Santa caused the elevator to stop so we could talk?” He looked at TJ with wide eyes, “Like in movies.” TJ was saved from any attempt at answering by the doors sliding open.  
_-_-_  
TJ worked through the holiday. He finished up backlogs of paperwork. He padded around the house in pajamas, trying to ignore the quiet. It was so quiet.  
A ding sounded, and TJ walked over, glancing at the screen of his phone.  
I’m sorry you’re alone, Detective.   
_-_-_  
“It’s not exactly the way things are done,” Captain Delghetty said as she stared at one of her best, and often most frustrating, detectives.  
“But, it’s not against the rules,” TJ said, “I’ve checked.”  
“I’m sure you have.” It was the day after Christmas, and TJ watched her intensely. “Okay. You have my permission, on a trial basis.”  
“Thank you, Captain.”  
_-_-_  
Burl Loomis walked into the office the day after Christmas with a cup of hot cocoa. He mentally checked off the amount of Christmas’s left before he could retire, and found the number further off than desired. He was so absorbed in the contemplations that he did not notice the change in the room for a few moments. Then he stopped dead in his tracks. There was a desk by the window covered in computer equipment. There was a goldfish on the table by the window and a potted plant on the desk.   
“Excuse me, Detective.”  
Burl turned around to find the weird young tech standing behind him with a cardboard box full of gadgets and Christmas decorations.   
“Who are you delivering that box to?”  
“I’m not. That’s my desk now,” Ryan said.  
“Burl,” TJ said, coming over, “Ryan is joining our unit.”  
“He’s a tech?”  
“Yeah. He’s our tech.”  
“He’s the station’s tech. Units don’t get their own tech.”  
“Well, we’re the first,” TJ explained. “He’s our tech. He works with us exclusively now.” He gave an awkward, formal smile. “Ryan, welcome to the All-City Homicide Unit.”  
“Wow,” he said, still in an even tone, but it was clear he felt it.  
Burl looked at TJ. “What have you done?”  
Jingle Bells burst out from a Santa that Ryan was setting on the desk. It began to do a dance. He looked up at them, “Merry Christmas,” he said. Burl stared at TJ wondering how he got on the naughty list to cause this to happen.  
But Burl was a good detective. As he went to his desk and took a seat, he saw the look exchanged between the young awkward detective and the younger, more awkward tech. There was a connection there, and Burl knew from experience, that while it happened rarely, when TJ formed a connection it was unbreakable. That was the basis for their own friendship, after all. There was not much that moved Burl these days, but loyalty was his weakness. It was why he stopped eating with the other officers.  
They insulted TJ to his face one too many times.  
Burl Loomis was loyal. He was loyal to his partner, and that meant he would be loyal to this strange tech that was now inhabiting their space.   
Jingle Bells blared again.  
Ryan looked at him, cringing, “Sorry.”  
He would be loyal, even if the new member of their team made it very, very hard.


End file.
